And then, I braced it for the first time. Talk about an exciting moment - stringing your first bow.

After this I put it on the tiller tree (more details of that later) and measured it a 57# at 28 inches. That was with the limbs still rough ground and totally square on the edges. I want to hit 50#. After un-stringing I noticed a problem, the front overlay had pulled away from the limb about a half-inch on both top and bottom. No panic but a close call.

To fix it I cut each overlay back two inches using a razor saw and being careful not to cut the glass. When I carefully cut and pried the piece off I was relieved to find that the epoxy joint was sound at the new overlay termination.

I immediately feathered the overlays. I suspect that since the overlays were very long, not tapered yet, and in the working portion of the fade they were just too stiff to bend with the limb.

After this incident was cleared up I marked out the handle shape and cut it.

Next I cut the sight window and left a lot of meat above the grip to work on the shelf radius later. I have not decided yet whether to cut the window 3/16 or 1/8 inch from center.

Since these photos I have done a lot of work shaping the handle - I am going slow so I don't go past the point I want.

I have also trapped the limbs very slightly in an effort to reduce weight. I have it down to 52#. I want to draw it all the way to my 30 inch span so this is still a bit higher than I want. If I can't get it lower DesertDude is going to try to take it away from me, so wish me luck.

WOW! I have always been interested in learning to build a bow, but was always skeptical that I could pull it off. I'm no longer skeptical, there is no way I can do that. I guess I'll keep the bowyers in business. Great thread.

Logged

...stood alone on a montaintop, starin out at a great divide, I could go east, I could go West, it was all up to me to decide, just then I saw a young hawk flyin and my soul began to rise......

I got a good deal of detail work done yesterday and today. Yesterday I strung it and shot it. It seems to smoke a 500 grain arrow pretty good. However, O.L. does not have to worry...yet. I have it pulling 51 pounds at 28 inches and am stopping there.

I spent a lot of time on the riser tweaking the grip and sight window.

The window is cut 5/32 from center. The grip is still a bit large but I am going slow here. Next I worked on the string nocks a bit and think I am satisfied with them.

Here is a picture of the profile.

And the strung bow.

This week I hope to spend evenings sanding and plan on using a Massey (epoxy) finish. Any suggestions are always welcome.

Happy Father's Day - I finished my bow today. I decided on using the Massey finish, thinned Devcon epoxy. I got the bow all sanded, 400 on the wood and 600 on the glass. Here is all of the stuff for spraying the finish. I use the Zerostat to neutralize static on the bow to keep down dust.

I have a couple of Paasche Model H airbrushes and am using a large, no. 5 tip. I have a pretty fair amount of experience spraying a lot of different stuff for the last 30 years but I must say I had a bit of a hard time with this finish. I started out hanging the bow vertically in my "poor man's" spray booth.

The first coat I did not thin enough and had a few problems with runs. Not a big deal, sanding with 320 & 400 wet got it smooth. Next I decided to hang it horizontally. I had a better mix this time but had fish eyes; I must not have cleaned the bow well enough after sanding. I wiped it down with denatured alcohol. More wet sanding. Than I thought maybe if I switched thinner from acetone to denatured alcohol I might get better results because of slower evaporation. Wrong, I got a lot of orange peel and switched back to acetone after shooting the belly limbs. More sanding.

Then I used acetone to wipe the bow before the fourth coat. This time I got a bit of sand scratch swelling. Anyway, wet sanding with 400, 600 and 800 after this coat I was happy and did not put on another coat. After a bit of steel wool (0000) and paste wax it looks pretty sweet.

It seems to be a pretty good shooter. The brace height wants to be up about 8 inches. This seems high for a longbow but it is pretty heavy R/D. Here she is at full draw.

It is 51lbs. @ 28 and weighs in at 1lb., 12oz. I had a blast building this bow and am now hooked. I am starting to think about the next one; after the fence gets painted and...

I've got a form almost identical to that bow and it likes bout 7 3/4" brace also,looks kinda high but shoots really well! Thats a real looker for # 1,can't wait to see what you come up with next time!!